The US Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump a temporary victory on Monday, lifting a lower court block on his executive order curbing the use of mail-in ballots.
The Republican president signed an order in March seeking to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the November midterm elections but it was immediately met with multiple legal challenges.
Democratic-led states sued the administration on grounds that under the US Constitution, states -- and not the federal government -- retain broad control over the administration of elections.
A district court in Massachusetts blocked implementation of the executive order but the Supreme Court on Monday lifted the judge's stay, allowing parts of Trump's directive to go ahead for now.
"The District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement" the executive order, the Supreme Court majority said in an unsigned opinion.
But the justices withheld final judgment on the merits of the case pending further litigation.
"The Court's disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful," they said. "On that score, time will tell."
The three liberal justices on the nine-member Supreme Court dissented.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, called the decision a "disgrace," adding that Trump "wants to make it harder for Americans to vote so they don't hold him accountable for the skyrocketing costs, illegal war, and rampant corruption that are a hallmark of his administration."
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is widely tipped to be a Democratic presidential candidate in the next election, said his state would file another lawsuit over the matter.
Trump's March executive order would require the compilation of lists of eligible voters and for the US Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters who are on the lists.
Trump has been a longtime critic of mail-in ballots but has frequently used them himself, including this month when he voted by mail in Florida's Republican primary.
Trump has for years claimed without evidence that mail-in voting is highly vulnerable to fraud, repeatedly linking it to his false assertion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him by Democrat Joe Biden.
"Mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt," he said during a July speech on election security.
Polls show that Trump's Republican Party faces a serious threat of losing its narrow control of Congress in the midterm elections in November, particularly in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber.
If Democrats win, they have signaled they will block Trump's agenda and could move to impeach him for the third time.
cl/pnb/
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